Wrestling Globe Newsletter by Mike Aldren – All the latest professional
wrestling news, gossip and occasional opinion direct to your mailbox.
WGN is read by industry power players, many top wrestlers and thousands
of fans from all around the world.

12/4 Smackdown TV results from Hampton, VA: R-Truth over CM Punk; Kane
over Mike Knox; Mickie James over Natalya & Beth Phoenix in a three-way
to win a title shot; Drew McIntyre over John Morrison; The Hart Dynasty
over Eric Escobar in a handicap match; and JeriShow over Cryme Tyme.

***

Funeral arrangements for Eddie “Umaga” Fatu were finalized last night
and are expected to be announced later today. I understand the family
has made plans for a service Wednesday in Houston following WWE’s Texas
television tapings so WWE people can attend. The family are also
planning a tribute show for January 16 in Leesburg, FL.

Fatu’s passing has attracted a lot of press around the world. CNN athttp://tinyurl.com/yzb294l ran a story that was their front page
headline splash for most of Saturday. Kevin Eck of the Baltimore Sun,
Dawn Marie and Terri Runnels are all quoted talking about wrestlers
dying young. Dawn Marie, due to her charity, Wrestler’s Rescue, seems to
have become the unofficial spokesperson to the mainstream media for
these types of stories. She was also booking Umaga for indy shows and
they used to be travel together back when they both worked for WWE.

Tomorrow’s Houston Chronicle has a nice piece on Umaga with quotes from
his aunt, Lynn Anoa’i, and Bruce Prichard, the former Brother Love.

The company sent a press release to local press in Dallas teasing a
confrontation between tonight’s Raw guest host and Dallas Mavs owner
Mark Cuban and Cody Rhodes. The release noted that Cuban is looking for
“payback” on Randy Orton for the RKO he received back at Survivor Series
in 2003. Rhodes was quoted saying that Cubin can bring some Mavs or
Cowboys players and they have a 6 man tag match against him, DiBiase,
and Orton.

DX vs. Hornswoggle in Little People’s court will apparently air on
tonight’s Raw. At least that was the plan at the end of last week.

Big Show underwent arthroscopic knee surgery two weeks ago in Tampa. He
was back at work a few days later and told people he was feeling great.

Ukranian-born Oleg Prudius, better known as Vladimir Kozlov, is taking
the Oath of Allegiance this morning at the Tampa Convention Center.

Several WWE talents voiced their disappointment over not being booked
for the Tribute to the Troops show, including Mickie James on her
Twitter. The show was taped last week at Balad Airbase in Iraq. The
roster for the show is actually finalized months in advance as all the
talents included are subject to FBI screening. There is also limited
space on the cargo plane with all the production equipment and crew.

Tribute to the Troops which airs December 19 on NBC has MVP vs. Chris
Masters; Rey Mysterio & Mark Henry vs. CM Punk & Carlito; John Morrison
vs. The Miz; and John Cena vs. Chris Jericho as the main event. The show
opens with the troops singing the national anthem. There is also a
segment with R-Truth dressed as Santa with some babyface Divas as
helpers giving out merchandise.

There is a lot of internal talk recently that SyFy is unhappy with
ratings for ECW. SyFy has asked WWE to look at rebranding the show sans
the E-C-W initials, according to a well-placed source.

Kaval (Low Ki) is expected to debut soon under a mask. That was the
creative plan talked about as of last week.

Rey Mysterio did a rare interview with the Daily Star athttp://tinyurl.com/yjx4byu. He talked about checking himself into rehab
last year for pain killer addiction, which is noted in his new book. He
said: “I had to do the right thing, I was so tired of taking medication
to keep me away from the pain; now I’ve learned how to cope with that
day to day, and it feels great to be a new man! … When you realise
you’re in the right moment – that you haven’t lost your family, or lost
your job it’s a good thing, and with the support and help of my wife and
kids, I’ve moved on to something better.” He also talked about how the
business has evolved and believes some of the younger talents in WWE
haven’t paid their dues: “It’s a lot easier to become a wrestler now, in
WWE, the head person in charge of bringing talent in has a look at you
and if he thinks you have something they’ll put you in their camp in
FCW, which makes it easier. When you don’t have the suffering,
everything is easy, but after that suffering you feel like you have
accomplished something when you get there. There are still a few guys
who have that desire, but not as many.”

Raw last Monday did a 3.2 rating, ECW last Tuesday did a 1.0, Superstars
last Thursday did a 0.9 rating, and Smackdown back on November 20 did a
2.1 rating.

WWE was granted an extension until December 15 to respond to Jody
Hamilton’s breach of contract lawsuit over Deep South Wrestling being
cut as developmental back in 2006.

Jeff Hardy’s probable cause hearing was continued until January 27. The
prosecution asked the judge for more time to produce evidence.

The Hartford Courant covered Jesse Ventura’s criticism over the lack of
unionization in professional wrestling. WWE PR executive Robert
Zimmerman was quoted in response saying that Ventura was a hypocrite for
saying such things after he recently hosted Raw: “We find it highly
hypocritical that Jesse had no problem coming on Monday Night Raw last
week to promote his new project or was happy to be paid all those years
by the WWE as a performer,” Zimmerman said. “He is just looking to
garner additional press for his fledging show, appropriately entitled
Conspiracy Theory.” Story is at http://tinyurl.com/yjbymvd.

Ventura walked off an appearance on the Opie and Anthony radio show.
Comedian Jim Norton got on his case again when talking about 9/11 and
conspiracy theories. They ended up in a heated argument and Ventura
walked off. There is a video clip online athttp://tinyurl.com/yz55x5w… Ventura also went on Colin Cowherd’s ESPN
show and bragged about defeating Vince McMahon in court years ago over
video tape royalties. He said he still receives checks from WWE to this
day and refers to them as his “wrestling retirement fund”… The
premiere of Conspiracy Theory last week averaged 1.6 million viewers,
the highest series launch audience ever on truTV.

Steve Austin will appear in the fifth episode of NBC series Chuck
scheduled to air January 25. He plays a close quarters combat expert.

The latest unwritten Twitter policy for talent is that they can’t Tweet
from bars after midnight or Tweet to/about friends in TNA.

Former announcer Kevin Kelly is interviewed at http://tinyurl.com/ltcdyz
talking about what it’s like to work closely with Vince McMahon. Very
interesting interview. Kelly also talks about the passing of Eddie Fatu.

There is an interview with the former Kizarny (Nick Cvjetkovich) athttp://tinyurl.com/y8t7n2s talking about his brief WWE run: “Working at
WWE was also awful because there is so much politics and back stabbing
you never know who your enemies are because they are all gutlessly and
unaccountably hiding in the shadows… I wasn’t given a straight reason
why I was released. One minute I was being told how unique I was and how
great of a work ethic I had the next minute they had nothing for me. I
have heard many different theories. I guess I just didn’t fit their
mould of cookie cutter. Not enough abs showing I guess even though in
the ring I can run circles around every ex-NFL player or jacked-up
underwear model collecting a paycheck in the WWE developmental system.”
He added: “Vince and his billion dollar case of ADD wants Ken Dolls
sports entertaining against other Ken Dolls at the moment. Me looking
weird or different didn’t compute with the tunnel vision that WWE
sometimes has even though Rob Zombie, Marlylin Mason and Hot f**king
Topic retail stores are all the rage with the kiddies. I have no idea
why different isn’t a good thing at WWE. If everyone looks and wrestles
the same — where is the fun in that? When you go to the circus you want
the variety of elephants, tight rope walkers, clowns, monkeys, fire
eaters, so why does that not apply to wrestling as well?”

Former WWE Canada president Carl DeMarco has taken a job on the Board of
Directors with Multiplied Media Corporation, a Calgary-based provider of
mobile local search services. He also interviewed recently with UFC in
Las Vegas. DeMarco had worked for WWE since 1995 and before that he was
the personal manager of Bret Hart. He was instrumental in WWE’s
evolution in Canada and internationally during the last decade, and
brought Wrestlemania to Toronto in 2002.

No new update on Sean Mooney returning to WWE as an announcer. His
colleagues at Fox Sports Arizona say they haven’t seen him around
lately.

The new Raw theme Burn it to the Ground by Nickelback has been nominated
for a Grammy for Best Hard Rock Performance along with War Machine by
AC/DC which was used as a theme for WrestleMania 25. Also, Bruce
Springsteen’s The Wrestler has been nominated for Best Song Written for
Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media.

Wisconsin’s WKBT is running a create a wrestler contest to win ringside
tickets to WWE’s January 11 show in La Crosse. More info athttp://tinyurl.com/ygm7h3x.

Hulk Hogan announced Saturday night during the Ultimate Fighter finale
on Spike that Impact will go live on January 4 with a 3-hour special
head-to-head against Raw. In case you missed it you can watch Joe
Rogan’s interview with Hogan at http://tinyurl.com/y9g7wv2. The best
part is Rogan saying that Hogan has been in some MMA fights before, and
Hogan doesn’t even flinch. He sat cageside for the fights with Dixie
Carter and Eric Bischoff. Jimmy Hart, Brutus Beefcake and The Nasty Boys
were also at the show but not shown on camera.

Obviously this is somewhat major news in that this is the first shot
that could spark another Monday Night War. For now the live show on
January 4 will be a one off special and Spike execs will be evaluating
whether it’s in their best interest to make the permanent move to Monday
nights. The timing is interesting as January 4 was the date talked about
as the night that Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson would host Raw, which would
be his first live in-person Raw appearance since 2004. January 4 is also
the scheduled date of the Fiesta Bowl, which does strong ratings,
coincidently with John Cena as Grand Marshal.

The current creative plan is for a faction led by Hogan to feud with a
faction led by Mick Foley. Most of the talent involved have been kept in
the dark but Hogan has been trying to recruit major names from the past
outside of the company for the storyline. He has also been telling
people that he plans to ditch the six-sided ring, but I can’t see that
one happening. Hogan’s PPV debut will be Genesis on January 17 from
Orlando.

The company randomly drug tested at the last television tapings. TNA has
never publicly released any information on their policy although last
year talent were given booklets detailing the supposed policies they
have in place. The last time they randomly tested the fail rate was high
but nobody was punished in terms of fines or suspensions.

Lacey Von Erich and her partner Grant officially announced their
engagement this past weekend.

Jeff Jarrett makes his storyline return to Impact this week when Mick
Foley visits his home. Will Karen Angle be there?

Impact last Thursday did an 1.0 rating. No real new interest so far
sparked by the Hogan hype in terms of ratings.

Sarita took part in the Freestyle Fitness 2009 this past week in Mexico
City. It’s a model-athlete competition involving a catwalk in a bikini,
cocktail dress, and an obstacle course.

One of our readers noted ordering 12 DVD’s from the TNA website but in
error they sent out 24. Our reader then sent an email to TNA customer
support to report the error and send back the extra DVD’s, but three
week’s later no response, so they sold them on eBay and made a profit.
The reader says they are going to spend the money on a ticket to a WWE
house show.

TNA has a special offer to help push soft ticket sales for the tour in
the UK early next year. They have a family package which includes 4
tickets, plus two free children’s T-shirts, for £97.50 ($162)… They
are also giving away a free DVD to fans who come to the TV tapings at
Universal Studios on December 7, 8 or 21. Traditionally the park is at
it’s lowest attendance of the year in December and they may struggle to
fill the Impact Zone.

TNA Epics will air on Spike TV beginning in January. The show, hosted by
Mick Foley, ran earlier this year for a first season run of ten episodes
in international markets. It’s a copycat version of WWE’s Vintage
Collection with matches and events from the history of TNA. In the UK,
nine original episodes aired between May and September this year but
mysteriously a Jeff Hardy special was pulled for undisclosed reasons,
but you can probably guess what they were.

The fallout from the Hogan divorce battle continues. The Tampa Tribune
reports that Hogan, in recent court fillings, claims that ex-wife Linda
stripped their Belleair mansion of valuable fixtures before she moved to
California, including the bath tub and toilet seat, and damaged some
property in the process. “We’re talking about tens of thousands of
dollars in property and repairs,” Hogan’s attorney, David Houston was
quoted as saying. The mansion is currently up for sale with a $13.9
million asking price. Linda’s attorney, Raymond Rafool claims that the
couple had agreed that the fixtures in question were not to be sold with
the house. He said Linda has offered to repair the damage but Hulk
refused. “Linda wants him just merely to comply with what they agreed
to,” Rafool said. An interesting note is court filings also revealed
Hogan received $2,285 in royalties from WWE from July 28 to October 15,
2009. Linda wants a piece of that as she says her divorce settlement
entitles her to a percentage of all of Hogan’s future earnings, but
Hogan denied her countering that for that period he recorded a net loss
of $120,000 due to attorney fees.

Hogan is a guest on the Canadian TV talk show The Surf on Tuesday night
at 10pm pushing his book.

Chelsea Handler on her E! show Chelsea Lately last week ripped on Brutus
Beefcake. She said they recently shared an airport lounge in Australia
and called him “f***ing disgusting… the grossest person I have ever
seen”. She said he was wasted and running around first class yelling
like a moron. Handler was on the same flight as Hulk Hogan, Jimmy Hart,
Eric Bischoff, Beefcake, Ric Flair, The Nasty Boys, and others.

Alex Marvez interviewed Ric Flair on possibly working for TNA. He said
he never gave a thought to working here before because of his loyalty to
WWE. He said, “I don’t want to make any predictions, but I’ve certainly
got a lot left to offer. I think I would be a good addition to (TNA’s)
program,” adding, “Everything is about money, timing, what they want me
to do and the job description. There’s a lot up in the air. I haven’t
talked to them yet, but I’ve had conversations with people who work
there. I’ve stood by WWE, but if they’re not going to use me anymore,
I’m ready for any kind of action.” Story is athttp://tinyurl.com/ycp97ok.

End Game starring Kurt Angle and Jenna Morasca was released on DVD this
past week. Kurt plays a serial killer who likes to stalk beautiful
women. The movie was produced by Northshore Pictures, a company based in
Pittsburgh and is a partnership between Kurt, Bruce and Bryan Kohler,
and Dave Hawk, Kurt’s agent.

OTHER WRESTLING NEWS

The daughter of Greg Gagne and granddaughter of Verne Gagne, is accused
of having sex with a student while working as a high school substitute
teacher and assistant basketball coach, reports The Minneapolis Star
Tribune. Gail E. Gagne, 27, is facing two counts of third-degree
criminal-sexual conduct for alleged incidents with a 17-year-old
student. The alleged sexual contact is said to have occurred during the
summer of 2008 when the boy was 16 and Gagne was 25 and is alleged to
have taken place in Gagne’s home in Bloomington and at a hotel where the
two allegedly spent the night together and had sex. Attorney Earl Gray
(what an awesome name), who is reportedly representing Gagne, said she
would enter a plea of not guilty and go to trial. Gagne is not in
custody and St. Paul, MN police say they believe she is living in the
Chicago area.

British wrestler Nik Bali was badly injured during a match in Cardiff
for Celtic Wrestling on November 27 after a double-team Styles Clash
move went wrong. He was reportedly paralysed from the neck down. His
family have asked for privacy and are not releasing any further details
about Bali’s condition at this time. UK promoter Greg Lambert told us:
“Nik is very well-liked on the UK wrestling scene. He is perhaps best
known as ‘The Bollywood Dream’ RJ Singh’s tag team partner in several UK
promotions.”

Dr. Death Steve Williams, who is currently battling cancer, got some
good news this past week when a PET Scan indicated that the cancer in
his Stoma was getting smaller. He said he has several more chemo
treatments and is more determined than ever to beat the disease.

WHPR TV-33 and AWWL Big Time Wrestling announced a deal to resurrect the
original Big Time Wrestling program in Detroit after a 35-year hiatus.
The show airing Saturday and Monday nights in Detroit includes classic
wrestling not seen on TV for decades featuring legends such as The
Sheik, Bobo Brazil, and Dick The Bruiser. The show will also air next
year on The Fight Network in Canada. AWWL is operated by Ed Farhat Jr.,
the son of the original Sheik.

A story from Australia at http://tinyurl.com/ylbx7us with people up in
arms over a midget wrestling show. Martin Fathers, a lecturer from RMIT
University in Melbourne, criticised the event run by New Age Wrestling,
saying that he was horrified that little people are used for
entertainment purposes. He said: “People say it’s all in good fun, but
it sends a very poor message that you can use people of different
abilities for the entertainment of able-bodied people… It’s an
appalling way for children to learn about diversity.”

Lilian Garcia recently did a photo shoot for the No H8 campaign in
support of same sex marriages.

The Sun at http://tinyurl.com/yl46lzl has a story on UK rock band
Kasabian who have been checking into hotels on tour using the names of
Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, and Steve Austin, among others to avoid groupies.
They may attract a different type of groupie with those names…

Rene Dupree and Portia Perez who are among those out in Europe touring
with American Wrestling Rampage subjected themselves to a bizarre
interview on a late night Bulgarian chat show. The host asked some
really weird questions including whether Dupree had injured himself
sexually while wrestling. Footage is at http://tinyurl.com/yz8t8w2 …
Dupree also did media interviews in Bulgaria ripping on WWE for making
him a “Mickey Mouse cartoon character”, and said he’s now making more
money than when he was with WWE and is glad he doesn’t work there
anymore. The AWR tour concludes later this week in France with shows in
Toulous and Marseille.

Former WWE wrestler Chris Nowinski is giving a presentation on brain
injuries tonight at Wayland Middle School in Wayland, MA. He is
presenting the latest research showing the risk of brain damage which
can cause depression and premature Alzheimer’s-like symptoms. This forum
is free to the public.